We had a much deserved lie in this morning and headed to Ljubljana Castle at 10am. We climbed up the hill in the unexpected sunshine (the forecast had said rain and a thunderstorm!) and reached the top pretty quickly. The castle hill is only 400m above sea level, and on a clear day (like today - yay!) you can see 1/3 of Slovenia including the beautiful mountains.
Thousands of years ago, people were already settling on the castle hill. The oldest wheel and axel in the world was found here and is 5300 years old. The castle has had a tumultuous past, including being under the control of various groups including the celts, the romans, the Slavs, the Czechs and the Hapsburgs. With its renovation that began to make it look like it does today, the castle was so well fortified that the Ottoman Empire tried numerous times to overthrow the existing rulers, but did not succeed.
Over the centuries, as well as serving the purpose a castle is expected to, the Ljubljana castle has also been a military warehouse, and under Napoleon it was an army barracks and hospital. It also functioned as a state prison. In 1905, the mayor Ivan Hribar purchased the castle so that it belonged to the state. He had a vision to set it up as a community place which could house a restaurant, summer concerts and museums. His dream was not to be realised in his lifetime. Due to the wars and some other factors, the castle fell into a bit of disrepair over the years. It was also used as a home for about 500 disadvantaged people people in the 1920s until 1964. After this time, it was converted into the kind of tourist attraction Hribar had envisioned. Nowadays there are a few museums, a restaurant and many different exhibitions and concerts taking place here. There is also a funicular to take people up the hill if they don’t want to walk.
Mum and I hired an audio guide. The walking tour guide yesterday had said not to bother with going into the castle, but we thought that was kind of like going to Paris and not going up the Eiffel Tower!
We headed first for the viewing platform and had stunning 360 degree views of the town and the mountains. Then we watched an interesting film about the castle’s history. We heard some trumpet players playing from the viewing tower.
Our audio guide then took us around the castle to sites such as the open air prison, where prisoners were exposed to all the elements, the water cistern, the penitentiary, the chapel, a lacklustre Slovenian history museum and the Puppetry Museum.
Puppetry began in Slovenia in the 15th century and Milan Klemenčič ran the first Slovenian puppet show. The first Slovenian animated films weren’t cartoons but stop motion puppet animations. I’ve always found puppets a little creepy!! But nevertheless, we checked out the puppets in the museum.
We descended back into town where we bought lunch at my favourite German bakery/convenient story, Backwerk. I was so excited on Thursday to see it here in the main square! Delicious food and so cheap. We ate it in the shade on a bench in the square because at this point, it was pretty hot. We had an ice cream from Cacao (so yummy!). Then we headed back to our apartment for a rest.
At 3pm we met the communist walking tour in Congress Square. The tour was OK. We learned a bit, but there was a horrible know it all British guy who was so condescending towards the guide and trainee and kept interrupting. It took a lot of will power to not tell him off.
Basically, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Montenegro had a resistance movement against the occupation during the Second World War. This was made up of lots of different political parties and members, including the communists. Then once the resistance movement defeated the nazi occupation here, Tito and the communists sort of took over. Communism here was quite different to communism in other countries such as Russia. It was a little more relaxed with people able to watch Hollywood movies and Yugoslavia importing foods from other regions.
Tito was the leader of Yugoslavia. We found it ironic that though communism is all about being equal, we were shown photos of Tito in a limo etc etc. Always the way I suppose, someone always wants to come out on top! Many streets, towns etc were named or renamed after him because religion wasn’t really a belief of the communists and a lot of towns etc were named after saints which they didn’t like.
After the communists took over here, there were many mass killings and people taken to concentration camps. A lot of people left the area if they owned a lot of property or a factory or something like that because they knew it would be taken from them. If they were discovered fleeing, they were sent back and often killed. One of our guides, Marjanna, told us about her grandparents fleeing to Argentina because of a factory they owned. Once Slovenia became independent in 1991 her parents moved back here and she was born here. 100,000 other people were not so lucky and were murdered either for trying to flee, or for having other beliefs. Mass graves were made inside many caves here in Slovenia.
Not everyone who appeared to be supporting or working for the communists actually did. Our other guide told us that her Dad had to work for the communists in order to have a job so that he could feed their family. She said she learned religion in secret and they had to go to another town for her first communion so nobody would find out. Apparently, Stalin and the USSR made 20+ assassination attempts on Tito.
Our tour took us to a few monuments, and also to buildings such as the Udba (the secret police). Marjanna told us that when her parents came back to Slovenia, two cousins who helped them come back had to be upfront and tell the Udba about this. Her parents tell her that after being investigated by the Udba, these two were never the same again.
Our tour ended in republic square, where on the 25th June 1991 Slovenia was proclaimed as independent. Following this, there was a ten day war for independence during which 20 people died. Luckily for Slovenia, after this they were mainly left unscathed. Other countries such as Croatia, Bosnia etc had to fight much longer and with many more casualties for independence.
After the tour, we had a rest in our room before heading up the castle hill with some picnic food we had bought. We got the funicular this time and enjoyed lovely views of the town while eating bread, meat, cheese and chocolate and drinking some radler (beer with lemon). Because the hill is not that high you could hear the music from the musicians down below.
We then walked through some of the gardens up on the hill. Ljubljana is much greener than Zagreb, and this was a lovely walk to the castle winery through the woods. We headed down before it got dark, had another quick stop at the apartment and then set off to check out the Ljubljana festival. We enjoyed some live music in congress square. One song was even in English!!
We ended our night with a drink of orange wine by the river. Just as we were ready to head back, it started to shower. We were lucky all day considering it was meant to rain!!
Off on another day trip adventure tomorrow.
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
